costa rica day 7

may 7, 2008
before leaving la fortuna we decided to hike to a waterfall. we got up in the morning and went and were the first ones there. we had the whole place to ourselves for a while so we played in the river downstream from the waterfall and watched the blue morpho butterfly flutter around. about an hour later the place started getting busy with visitors, and we hiked out. the hike down to the waterfall wasn't too bad, because it was all downhill, but coming out was straight up made even more difficult by carrying the kids.

after the waterfall, we all piled in the van to travel across the country to the caribbean side of costa rica where we would be staying for most of the rest of the trip. before we left we had some tentative arrangements but nothing concrete for places to stay, and dan's co-workers gave him some grief about that. they thought it was weird for us to just go down there with no real plans and wing-it...especially travelling with 6 kids.

so we asked directions on the best way to get to puerto viejo and we were told to head in a general direction and then ask for directions along the way. the roads in costa rica are poorly labeled when they are labeled at all so it made for an interesting road trip. i speak spanish as does my brother-in-law, and my sister manages ok with her knowledge of italian, but one of my favorite times was when we sent dan out to ask for directions. we were out in the countryside where they didn't speak english, and for some reason we thought it would be a good idea to send the non-spanish speaker out to ask for directions. needless to say we went a little ways further and then asked again for directions.

we were under the impression that it would take us 5 or 6 hours to get there, but it ended up taking us at least 10 hours to get to the house we were renting just outside of puerto viejo.

costa rica day 6

the next morning we had arranged to go on a little rafting trip for the morning. it was a really gentle river so we just floated along and looked at the wildlife. we saw sloths, bats, howler monkeys and even a crocodile. the funny (or not so funny) thing is that part way through our trip we stopped to swim in the river for a little while, and the kids were floating down in their life jackets and swimming and stuff. we got back in the boats to continue the trip and right around the next bend was the crocodile. also, our trusty guides decided to take our inflatable raft right up and nudge the crocodile. i could just imagine it taking a bite at our sturdy ship.

when we pulled out of the river we stopped by some peoples house where they had made us fried plantains and some cheese. it was pretty tasty. they also had some brand new little puppies that entertained the little kiddos.

later that evening dan and i left our kids with my sister and we went to find some hot springs. there are lots around, and we didn't really want to pay $50 to go so we found a reasonably priced one. it took us a while to find it with the directions given us and with the limited signs. eventually we found it, and it was fun, but basically just a big hot tub.

i had been to costa rica previously when i was in college and we went to a really cool hot springs that had beautiful plants and more natural surroundings and waterfalls and stuff, but we paid a lot more to go to that one. so i was a little dissapointed this time when it was like going to a community pool. you get what you pay for i guess. we had wanted to find some natural hot springs along the river, but weren't able to pry that information out of the locals.

more on costa rica....

so, over a year ago we went to costa rica and i never finished writing about our adventures. well, i am going to attempt to recall what happend on the rest of the trip and show a few more pictures.

so, i left off the last post about costa rica arriving in la fortuna. so we spent the night there and in the morning after a breakfast of fresh fruit and gallo pinto (rice and beans) at the hotel we headed into town. my brother in law decided he wanted to see if any stores in town sold a backpack to carry their 1 and 1/2 year old little boy. we asked at numerous stores and nobody really knew what we were talking about. so we decided to abandon the idea and head off toward volcan arenal and go for a hike (ok so really more of a walk since we had 4 kids under age 4 with us).


arenal is an active volcano, so you can see the boulders being spewed out of the top of the volcano, and hear the eruptions. we never had a clear night where we could see the volcano, but during the day we were able to have some good views. we hiked to where there was an old lava flow from about 10 years ago or something. it was cool to be able to see an active volcano.